Just Posted: Sony Alpha NEX-5R hands-on preview

Just Posted: Sony Alpha NEX-5R hands-on preview. We've been investigating Sony's latest mid-range NEX to try to get to the bottom of the features it adds to the NEX family. These include a revised 16MP APS-C CMOS sensor with phase-detection elements to power the camera's hybrid AF system, and the ability to download proprietary apps. The body may look the same as the previous 5-series cameras, but don't let that fool you - there are a lot of changes under that magnesium alloy skin. Read our preview to find out more.

Comments

I wish Sony would start delivering on some additional emount lenses for the cameras that are already available, as opposed to releasing several versions of the same camera every few months. I'll buy a fast prime or two, but I'm not throwing down for yet another NEX.

i am the proud owner of a sony NEX-7 and a tamron 18-200mm lens. with my right hand on the nicely sized grip and my left hand on the left corner of the camera and under the lens it balances beautifully. i can carry it all day as it is very light. it is not front heavy, unbalanced or uncomfortable to hold. the camera takes beautiful images and the tamron lens is sharp and this gives me 13x19in. prints at least the equal of my canon gear including some L glass. you can't judge how this works by looking at pictures.

I get a kick out of most who complain about the size as well, to be honest. While a nice flat pancake might be nice, even with the Kit 18-55mm or Zeiss 24mm, the camera is still so light. I own a 5Dmk2 and 7D along side a slew of lenses, and I love them, but they are a task to carry around ALL THE TIME. I bought a Nex7 a few months ago, and for real, I ALWAYS have it. I never miss an opportunity. I have a super small fossil "man purse" (lol) that I've grown used to carrying. It always has the body and 3 lenses in it; The Sigma 19, 30, and Zeiss Planar 50mm f2. Size wise, this equates to the size of my 5D body, alone, with no lenses...maybe less. Or, I can strole out of the house with the camera and one lens around my neck for the whole day and never notice it's there and there is no issue with handelling. Even with the kit lens, or the Zeiss 50mm I own, the camera is light enough to rest on one left hand finger while held in the right. There is zero issue with balance for me.

I often have a wry smile when I read comments about the ratio of body to lens size of the Nex series of cameras. In reality, having a manual zoom lens the size of the kit lens makes for a very comfortable handling experience.

In reality, the kit zoom is no larger than many APS-C optics, it is just that a Nex 5 body is smaller than most. It may look odd, but just handle one to see what I mean.

Here are some photos of actress Blake Lively using an NEX 5 on the street, to give people a more realistic understanding that these cameras are still so very compact that an average female can easily handle these cameras with no "balance" issues.

I just don't use the galleries here and choose to keep my personal life and work separate from dpreview. And I've certainly included my images in my postings when it was appropriate to the topic. Why does it matter? Does it somehow invalidate anything I've said? Or is this your feeble attempt at censorship? LOL. Nice try.

If you have a response or a rebuttal to a comment, then make a response or rebuttal to a comment. But to make non sequitur forays into whether or not someone has a gallery is neither here nor there.

i had a nex 5 and several of the bigger zoom lenses and found it extremely awkward compared to a dslr so I sold it and went back. Seems like a fad to me. The advantages of the small, mirrorless body are mostly lost when you tack on the big zoom lens and additionally, it becomes awkward and lens heavy to hold. Wearing it on a strap is awkward too

@Jack A. Zucker - believe it or not, larger, heavier lenses should be supported with your left hand. That's how we do it with big, heavy lenses in the DSLR world. I can mount a Canon 100-400L IS on a Rebel body, and some people like yourself might say, "My goodness, that looks awkward", but if you know how to hold it right, it's not an issue at all. The same goes for mirrorless systems. You just have to know how to hold the camera and lens. But of course, these same people who find mirrorless systems to be "heavy to hold" and "awkward wearing it on a strap" have no problem grabbing a DSLR + lens combo that can easily weigh 3 or 4 times more, with lenses that can create much more imbalance.

It's normal that some people will be more adaptable than others. Some of us can easily go from full size DSLRs to compact P&S cameras, and certainly to these mirrorless systems. It's good to keep your mind flexible and adaptable. But alas, some of us are more successful at it than others.

T3: I have a pentax k-7, which is fairly light and when I slap my old 80s tamron 60-300 sp on, it becomes very front heavy and I can see where a grip would help balance things.....same goes for my zx7 that I shoot film with. Its even lighter. A heavier camera tends to help with stabilizing when handheld too. With a heavy, fast zoom you still have something very front heavy. If you balance it on a tripod maybe, but that's awkward and defeats the point of having fast glass.

Those cameras are getting smaller and smaller with the lens dragging down everything. It is getting out of proportions. The lens - by the law of physics - cannot be downsized more. Are we at sometime holding a postal stamp sized camera to a lens? Those camera designers are on the wrong route.

Balancing should be the new trend not extremes to which no human hand feels at ease with. The body shakes alone – my god.

I still will keep to well balancing bodies. And there are plenty of good offers.

Apparently you don't know how to hold a camera. Every camera + lens combo has a center of gravity. This is true even if you're talking about a bulky DSLR's 70-200/2.8 which can easily make many DSLRs look unbalanced. And there are plenty of DSLR lenses that are larger! Nevertheless, with proper holding technique, where your left hand is positioned at the center of gravity, balance is easily achieved. The same applies to the NEX.

Just look at the photo above, which demonstrates good, balanced holding technique. That's not anything CLOSE to being "extremes to which no human hands feels at ease!" LOL! The entire camera practically sits in the palm of your hand. So where's the imbalance or lack of ease?

The only "distortion of proportion" is people like yourself who have the ill-informed notion that these compact NEX cameras are somehow monstrously big, bulky, heavy, unwieldy, and at the "extremes to which no human hand feels at ease with"...which is waaaay off the mark.

Sony is also introducing a collapsible 16-50 zoom that is much smaller. I hope they offer it as a kit lens because it sounds nice. Does it violate the laws of physics? Sure, when it is fully extended the weight will be forward, but that is true of dslr zooms, too. Some of them are very heavy and do have to be supported. That's what your left hand is for. Luckily, Sony puts proper grips on current NEX bodies so they fan be held one-handed if you really have to. Try that on most Olympus MFT models. Not very comfortable.

To those of you who complain about the NEX5N and the lack of pancake lenses, Please take note:1. It is true that the NEX5N has a dumbed down consumer appearance, but don't let appearances fool you. The camera is full featured and as fully capable as any of the best of them under $1500. I shoot Raw and the images are spectacular and require very little post processing in CS5.

As for pancake lenses, both Sony and Panasonic make MFT pancake lenses. The camera comes with a zoom kit lens because marketing tells the manufacturer that it is what sells. BTW, it is an excellent lens. As for pancakes, I use an Panny f 1.7 20mm and the results are very sharp and contrast moderately high.

So, I'll say this as politely as possible: Shut up unless you know what you are talking about. Your ignorance is showing.

As I use both the Sony NEX5N and the Olympus OM-D, I got a little carried away in my comment. Sony Does not make MFT lenses and the NEX5N is obviously APSC format. Sony does make a pancake lens and all the rest of my comments remain unchanged.

Why on earth they don’t put direct buttons (ISO, WB) and jogs like many compacts have now a days. Sony RX100 has many more direct buttons. Why NEX can’t have any and has this childish interface. Are this lens interchanable APS-C cameras only for point n shoot people?? I don't think so..

Wi-Fi? Do we really need it in this camera?How does it affect the battery life? (because 5N, which I own, is not so good in this respect).GPS could have been more useful IMHO.Apps are interesting (if done right - open API, open SDK etc). But knowing Sony - I'm not very optimistic.Now - are the apps going to make their way to, say, 5N (via firmware updates)?

As for wifi, people tend to forget that we live in a social media world now. Rather than just taking photos that end up on your hard drive, where few people will ever see them, people like uploading and sharing their photos, without having to run to a computer to do so. And if you have apps where you can tweak the photos before uploading them, all the better!

Plus, you also have to remember that wifi-capable devices can integrate location-based tagging, so the inclusion of Wi-Fi can give you GPS, but a camera with just GPS will not give you Wi-Fi. So given the choice between the two options, Wi-Fi is obviously the better choice. Obviously, this won't help if you're in the wilderness, but for most users of this camera, in social settings, in the middle of civilization, where Wi-Fi is plentiful, it'll do fine.

Turn the wi-fi off and it will do nothing to your battery life. I would also like GPS, but wi-fi is far more versatile. For a travel camera, it is a superb asset. Upload your pictures as you go and never have to worry about your camera and/or laptop being stolen or lost.

Dumb move leaving off flash to keep the body slim. Even the F3 has it built in now. Sure, it's weak, but there are times when it's handy and it adds very little weight or bulk. Instead they give a silly little add-on flash that is easily broken and a bother to attach. Other than that, this is a great camera, but I think the NEX-6 is going to be awesome.

I think people who make these kind of inane comments ("such a big lens") have never held an NEX in their hands. The "big lens" is no bigger than a conventional APS-C DSLR's kit lens (or slightly smaller). Plus, you have to take into account the entire camera (body + lens), which are still significantly smaller than a conventional APS-C DSLR + lens. Just look at the image above! That's a *small* camera compared to any APS-C DSLR + lens you put next to it!

Personally, I think dpreview should photograph this camera sitting next to an APS-C DSLR so people who foolishly still think anything about this camera is "big" (including that lens) can see a direct size comparison to a DSLR. Without these size comparisons, I think people will continue to make ill-informed comments like Charlie Jin's. "Oh my gosh, it's such a BIG lens!" Or you get people, like someone below, comparing the kit lens to a *Coke can*! LOL. Seriously? Go handle one of these cameras, folks. Educate yourself.

When I first saw the NEX camera in hands of my japanese client (It wasn´t available in Europe those days) my first thout was just the same: what a funny camera, tiny body and huge lens! Now I understand the lens is even smaller than lenses for APSC DSLR´s and that the sensor size matters, but I still see a NEX camera making the most sense with a small pancake. I understand that a combination of NEX + 18-55 lens is considerably smaller than a DSLR + 18-55 lens, bu neither of them is pocketable, so the size advantage is not that crucial (as for example is for the RX100 compared to Nikon 1).

@iudex - I really don't understand people who say that if a camera can't fit in your pocket then any size difference isn't significant. That's just silly. Smaller is smaller, less bulk is less bulk, and less weight is less weight.

I shoot with a 5D, 60D, and 40D for work, but I also use an Oly 4/3 for off-work casual shooting as my everyday-carry camera. I can't pocket any of these camera, but there's no doubt that the differences in body size, bulk, and weight between my DSLR's vs my mirrorless camera make a noticeable and significant difference when carrying them around.

Less weight is less weight, less bulk is less bulk, and less size is less size regardless of whether they go in your pocket. A camera like the 60D+lens ends up being about twice the size and weight of an NEX 5R+lens...and yet there are people who will still dismiss this difference just because you can't fit it in your pocket! Weird.

@T3: I did not say smaller size is not an advantage. I just mentioned that proportion of body size to lens size is funny and that such a small body makes the best out of this advantage only with pancake lens. I of course see the difference between NEX+18-55 lens and 60D+18-55 lens, but there are smaller APSC DSLR´s where the difference is not that big (e.g. D3100). I can still fit my K-r to my briefcase if I separate the lens. I don´t fit the camera with attached lens and for NEX it is the same. So I have to carry either of these cameras on my neck or in the camera bag.

@iudex - your K-R's body has a lens registration distance of 45.46mm (distance from lens mount to sensor). The entire exterior body thickness of an NEX 5R is only 38mm! In other words, the body thickness of a 5R is less than the distance between the sensor and the lens on a K-R, with room to spare. You can detach a lens from an NEX, slip the body in one coat pocket and the lens in another coat pocket. With a K-R, you would have a tough time just getting the body into any coat pocket, and if you did, it would result in a bulky bulge.

Plus, even when hanging these cameras off of our straps, many of us still appreciate the smaller size, less weight and less bulk. And smaller camera packages make dedicated camera bags far less necessary. I've hung SLR/DSLR cameras off my shoulder all my life, and I definitely welcome the lighter presence that MILC cameras now offer.

Really, if size is such a huge deal, just slap on a m39 adaptor with your favourite leica lens. Problem solved :)

On another track, a lot of people don't realize that in order to use an an APS-C sized sensor (which I think is an excellent idea), the lens has to be a certain size, and it has to be a certain distance from the sensor.

On m4/3 systems, everything's shrunk smaller. Kudos to Olympus for managing to squeeze such noise-free photos out of the OM-D. It's *difficult* squeezing noise-free images out of a smaller sensor. Look at the difference between high ISO images between your pocketable P&S cameras vs APS-C sensor'd DSLRs -- nuff said.

It might be true that with a built-in flash the camera would be bigger; on the other hand Sony should have provided better external flash than just a funny flash with GN7. I repeat, guide number 7. Most built-in flashes are much stronger (at least GN 10), so if Sony decided to rely on external flash, they should have made it much stronger.

I have only one question, has the focus peaking been improved? The #1 reason I bought NEX camera is to be used with the excellent manual glass of yesteryear, and thus focus peaking is the most important feature.

Have you ever held one of those "coke can size" lenses in your hand? They are still quite compact. Smaller than their DSLR counterparts. They just look large because the bodies are so compact. But overall, there is a significant size and weight reduction compared to an APS-C DSLR.

you can make small wallets, but, what does it helps you if you have big money. Only with big money you can buy a lot. Same with lenses. You put a pancake like the 16mm. makes the thing smaller, and then you complain because of limited use and bad shots. You can't get it all, the RX100 is made for you, not the NEX. No one never will blame you to have a pancake on it. The new Sony pancake will come soon, so a bit of patience, Sony is a slooooow working company, but you can't do anything good if you go fast.

I did some quick math on this to give some a real idea of how small this lens is.

If you keep in mind that a lens can only be as small as the the physical body PLUS the distance to the image that the lens makes (lens dimensions plus the registration distance) the NEX 18-55 kit zoom is just 10% longer than the Canon 40mm pancake but also 10% smaller volume-wise. Canon and Nikon kits then become 95% and 123% larger than the NEX in volume, and 60% and 62% longer, respectively.

Physical dimensions only - the nex kit is 4% larger in volume but 12% shorter than a standard 50/1.8 prime. (I used sony dimensions), 32% shorter if you factor in registration distance.

A Coke can has no registration distance. Physically a coke can is 226% the volume and 204% the length of the NEX kit.

The camera looks the same size as 5N, which though small is not inconvenient -- it has a good grip for the right hand, and due to short body, the left hand can conveniently hold the lens. It's a lot more convenient design than a bigger m4/3 camera I also have. Sony NEX cameras are the only ones being small are actually convenient to handle. If there is any improvement I can think of is making a camera 1 inch taller and a grip a little bit bigger, and by all means keep it thin and short.

Am I the only one who misses the F3's built-in flash. Yes, it's tiny, but it more than makes that up by its usefulness. Just pop it up, and tilt the light towards the ceiling -- instant bounced light. I just took the F3 to a trip and the built-in flash allows me to take some of the best casual pictures I've ever taken w/o any bulk equipment. IMO, every point-n-shoot should have a flash that works similarly.

Uh, did you just crawl out of a cave and see a digital camera for the first time? LOL. People do not "wave the camera around." People hold the camera steady, frame the shot, and take the shot. And if you look at how the camera is being held in the photo above, it's really no different from how people used to hold medium format film cameras that had waist-level viewfinders like on Bronica medium format cameras or Rollei twin-lens reflex cameras.

No, I'm a user who's had digital cameras for over 10 years, & in that time seen the feature set get dumber & dumber. Bye bye top info LCDs (now only on mid-top level DSLRs), bye bye bulb mode (now only on DSLRs), plus a host of other features. Bye Bye flash. Now bye bye EVFs/OVFs. Most of the other EVS-less cams have a fixed back lcd, thus you'll be waving them around in front of your face like a phone. - This is NOT how I want to take photos. And yet if all other cameras makers follow suit, that's what I, and all other users who take their photography even half seriously, will be FORCED to do! NO THANKS! OVFs & more recently EVFs were created and EXIST for a reason! Which includes bracing the camera in a way that includes using your eyebrow and arms locked in close to steady a shot. Holding a camera in front of you - iphone style, makes it IMPOSSIBLE to take a steady shot, especially in low light (slow shutter speeds) or zooming in!Now go crawl back into YOUR cave.

Oh dear oh dear, with a good neck strap I found by holding the strap taught one is basically holding the camera very steady on 4 axis, ie, arms locked (2) + neck strap taught (2) = better than holding a camera to the eye. Try it, it really works with DSLRs on live view!

The thing that lets Nex down are the lack of quality wide fast compact prime lenses like some of the M4/3 offerings, not the lack of a viewfinder.

I'll wait for a canonik FF mirrorless offering, it's only a matter of time, I mean Leica can make a compact FF system so it will be possible.

Poking a camera on the end of straps is just not very stable and it doesn't work well in LIveView.

And for Heaven's sake, Leica is a RangeFinder camera which never had a mirror. It's been around since before SLRs were invented. Photographers moved to SLR so they could have through the lense optical viewfinders. The way you're thinking a rangefinder is a new thing people will migrate towards.

- Bulb mode? the NEX-series got it. - EVF? Got it, just removable to keep the small form factor, and in case you want it integrated, the NEX-6 and NEX-7 have it. It's all about options.- Top LCD? Who need that when you can have all that information in the main LCD (it's redundant a little bit in these days, it's a main feature of the old SLR days)- Flash units? There are two flash units for this camera available, plus a Hot-shoe adapter available via third-party manufacturer.

OVF was created back then because that was the only way the engineers could found to allow the photographers to see what they are capturing.EVF on the other hand, are for people like you that blame all the motion blur come from your hands cant hold steady and cant see the screen because you dont wear your glasses.

other than that, yes there is no point to include any kind of viewfinder on a bright beautiful 3" + screen

@xoio well, don't put yourself on a pedestal. a camera is your tool to get the photo. how people take photographs now and in the future will change, but artistic direction and creativity won't.

if you think this camera sucks just because it doesn't have what you want, you just totally dissed photography on a whole. no wonder you call yourself a "USER" and not a "PHOTOGRAPHER". so don't talk as if you're one.

by the way, the 5N and other mirrorless cams have swivel LCDs, not just fixed. also there are options to attach an EVF, and you can even use BULB mode. so i have no idea where your uneducated rant is coming from

If this thing had built in flash, on Oled EVF and all you ask for, it would cost 1000$. Then, you would criticize the price. Buy or leave, it's the thing you need or do not need. Universe is binary, + and -, Yes or No, there is nothing beyond and between. There is a 3F and a 7, there will be a 6, enough to choose among, and, they have what you look for. Yes, I know, there is no phone included ..shhhhhh

King Penguin is absolutely correct. I have used the the "tight strap" method for video using a Canon 5D Mark II with 70-200mm /F4 lens plus 2x telephoto adapter, and the video is very steady, with slow panning (from the torso). It would have been simpler with a tripod (and even better) but shooting conditions (shooting road construction out of window) made tripod use impractical. The problem with the "tight strap" method is that, on the5D Mark II, pressing the start and stop button was nearly impossible without jiggling the camera.Of course a viewfinder that attaches to the LCD would have been better, but I did not have one.

In case no one has noticed, the strap attachment geometry of the NEX-5R has been greatly improved!

In summary, I highly recommend the "tight strap" method for shooting using LCD with any camera.

I wonder if they finally fixed the single biggest disgrace of 5n: the lack of AutoISO for the manual mode? Without this mode the use of fast E-mount lenses is crippled (e.g. shooting at 1/125 and F2 in changing lighting conditions is a great pain since ISO needs to adjusted all the time manually).

I don't think the mode being M means anything beyond aperture and shutter being independently selectable. For example white balance and focus can still be set to Auto. AutoISO is a major feature and not having it in M mode is a big inconvenience to many users (especially whose who got used to the convenience from Nikon and Canon cameras). Of course not everybody needs it but most people who use fast E-mount primes do.

In my opinion it is the single biggest disgrace simply because they disabled an obviously useful option that does not require any additional engineering effort. The only possible excuse is that perhaps this feature happens to be patented in some way. But in either case it is certainly going to cost them customers if they don't fix this.

I'm probably not the right person to talk about this but it rather seems like a question of "philosophy".

AutoISO makes the setting of both exposure and the apperture kind of unpredictable. (Like setting a film camera's A and S without knowing what film sensitivity will appear inside when i you press the shutter...)

Maybe the Apperture priority mode should be used in the case you described above...

I would find it great. There is no way to control aperture and shutter speed and let the camera change ISO to expose properly. No you have to set ISO yourself. You first try 400 -> to dark.... -> 800 -> still to dark... and so on... It would be great to let that be set by the camera.

"At launch, only the SEL1855, SEL55210, SEL18200LE, and SEL24F18Z models will be compatible with the faster autofocus system; support should be expanded over time through firmware updates, but it isn't yet clear if this will eventually encompass all Sony's E-mount lens models or not."

Why so much hate for wifi??? I love sending some of my images to my iPad's Snapseed app for a quick adjustments before emailing them to my editor while on the road;) But I guess 5N, or whatever other camera, and EyeFi SD cards does it well enough for now.

"I love sending some of my images to my iPad's Snapseed"Do ya think just any one on this globe uses an Ipad? What is all that Wifi good for? I make photos since more than 50 years, at that time wifi was a name given to fools....

All i want is the 35mm 1.8 to be released and sold to me....Then i will buy the nex5/6....35mm on a 1.5x sensor is my most used Focal length.If the AF truely is great i'll be all over this...if its not...the lower end fuji will be my babe.

Sony NEX have 3 bodies (going up to 4 in September) it seems like a lot because they update each one each year. The 3 line is optimized for cost, the 7 line for image quality, and the 5 line for physical size. This does make me wonder about the role of the NEX 6 line.